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Ruth J. Simmons, who made history in 2001 when she was named the first black president of an Ivy League institution, will step down from the leadership of Brown University at the end of the academic year, the university announced on Thursday.
Ms. Simmons’s presidency was baptized by fire. When she took the helm at Brown, the university was embroiled in a difficult and contentious debate about the wounds of slavery. The conversation was sparked by David J. Horowitz, a conservative writer who placed an advertisement in the student-run newspaper, The Brown Daily Herald, arguing against paying reparations to black descendants of slaves.
“It is impossible to know what you’ll be given to deal with when you’re in a leadership position,” Ms. Simmons told The Chronicle on Thursday. “Would it have been my fondest wish to come into a presidency at the very moment the Horowitz matter was being resolved? No.
“At the time I felt it was an enormous burden to carry,” she continued. “I could not obscure the fact that my race would be the centerpiece of it all, in a sense. But I just don’t believe it’s fair or appropriate for people to complain about the fact that they are dealing with issues that are particular to their identities.”
Responding to the controversy, Ms. Simmons established a Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice, charging the group with preparing a full account of the university’s relationship to slavery. While the committee stopped short of recommending payment of reparations to the descendants of slaves, the group called for an overt acknowledgment of “Brown’s part in grievous crimes,” finding that the university and some of its earliest benefactors had profited from the slave trade.
That accounting led to several new efforts, including the establishment of an endowment to support public education for students in Providence, R.I., as well as the creation of tuition-free fellowships for a new master’s degree in urban education and urban education policy.
‘Going Back to Teach’
Ms. Simmons’s resignation will end her run of 17 years as a university president. She came to Brown from Smith College, where she began as president in 1995.
She is a graduate of Dillard University, in New Orleans, rising from what she described as “a small college that few people have ever heard of” to the top of one of the nation’s pre-eminent research universities.
While Ms. Simmons remains the Ivy League’s only black president, she said she’s encouraged by the diversity she sees in the presidencies of top research universities in the United States. She noted, for instance, that women now have far greater representation in the leadership of institutions that belong to the Association of American Universities. Indeed, the leadership landscape has changed considerably in the last decade, Ms. Simmons said.
“When I went to my first Ivy League presidents’ meeting, I didn’t feel particularly welcome,” she said.
Revealing her seasoned experience with the news media, Ms. Simmons added, “I’m sure you’ll print that.”
Ms. Simmons set significant goals for herself early in her presidency. She said she wanted to increase the Brown faculty by 100 or more, and that 20-percent increase in faculty ranks has come to pass over the course of her presidency, university officials said.
The university recently completed a $1.6-billion capital campaign, which Ms. Simmons said had created a fine bookend to her tenure.
“It seems to be the ideal time to take a step back and allow the university to move forward,” she said. “Seventeen years is long enough.”
After she steps down, Ms. Simmons said she planned to continue as a professor of comparative literature and Africana studies at Brown. When asked about speculation that she might be considered for a slot as U.S. secretary of education, Ms. Simmons stated no such interest.
“Ah, yeah, yeah,” she said. “I’m going back to teach.”
